Various types of hat and coat racks, clothes stands, and clothes trees have been devised since at least the early days of colonies. Subsequent to the American Civil War, some attention was given to providing cloak or clothes stands which would rotate. Examples of such stands may be seen as follows in the early patents to:
______________________________________ INVENTOR PATENT NO. ______________________________________ J. R. Palmenbury 48,989 S. A. Parker 381,414 F. Wolf 478,386 E. Leger 649,734 F. Wolf 922,991 M. Kozlowski 1,258,756 Leon M. Levinthal 3,788,489 ______________________________________
In addition, revolving devices have been provided to support neckties (No. 1,466,564); displays (No. 3,424,313); saddles (No. 3,315,819); and powder dispensers (No. 4,582,225).
Further, in the course of the prosecution of the application Ser. No. 07/048,324 of which the present is a continuation in part, the following additional patents have been cited by the Examiner:
______________________________________ INVENTOR PATENT NO. ______________________________________ Lavaggi 346,293 Ziegler 67,680 Warren 127,028 Neagle 3,310,180 Engel 3,547,275 Schramm (West Germany) 2,019,456 Cillario 4,453,640 ______________________________________
For one reason or another, revolving clothes or coat racks, are seldom, if ever, seen in use today. Conceivably, this could be because devices made of elaborate ironworks, such as are illustrated and described in the patents to Palmenbury (No. 48,989), Parker (No. 381,414), Leger (No. 649,734), and Wolf (No. 922,991), would appear to be both expensive to fabricate, cumbersome to carry and properly locate, and not aesthetically appealing. As a consequence, most clothes trees or clothes racks found today comprise simple vertical wooden members supported by a plurality of legs or some other base, and a plurality of hooking devices radiating from the upper end of and fastened to the member by screws or bolts. Usually these clothes trees or stands are placed against a wall or in a corner in such a manner that coats or other garments to be hung therefrom, can only be hooked onto one or two sides, and not on the hooks extending toward the wall or the walls against which the stand is placed. It is desirable therefore, to provide for rotation of the hooking elements, as was apparently appreciated more than one hundred years ago.
In addition, clothes trees ordinarily have but a single function, namely, to receive and hold one or more coats, hats, scarves, and other garments. They seldom, if ever, serve any other purpose, and particularly, any decorative function.
It is also, however, most important that any revolving clothes tree or stand, whatever other function it may perform, be both inexpensive to fabricate and assemble, light in weight so that it can be easily moved about in a room or other location, occupy a minimum amount of space, and be pleasing in appearance. It is also desirable from a marketing standpoint for a clothes tree or rack to be packaged compactly in a disassembled state, but easily and securely assembled in whatever place it is to be placed for use.
The prior art falls short of achieving all of these objectives.